As always, and especially for anyone new to the Wholly Macro Delivery world, we encourage you to order extra food to freeze for use while we are closed. All of our menus are surprisingly freezer friendly, and are just perfect for ordering extra food from.

WEEKLY ARTICLE 

Kitchen Counter Attacks

This is really important, so please listen up.

If You Want To Cook, You Are Going To Have To Cut The Kitchen Clutter.

The kitchen is one of the busiest rooms in a living space. Even if you don't cook!

Even if you don't cook, it is still a meeting space, a gathering space, and an organizational and storage space.

And if you do cook, or if you want to cook, your kitchen is your nourishing and nurturing space. A medicine cabinet and pharmacy if you will. And hopefully an all-natural one.

Yet the kitchen inevitably ends up being the most cluttered room in the house. Especially if you don't cook, because then it becomes even more of a catch all for everything under the sun.

Those nice long horizontal counter spaces are like magnets for "things" of all sorts!

When I was much younger; college age, early adulthood, and even beyond, although I was always a cook, I have no memory of kitchen space, or lack thereof.

I cooked a lot back then, most of the time in kitchens the size of a small closet. And I mean a small closet!

And I bet the counters were completely cluttered.

I didn't know any better.

I was young. My head was toxic and cluttered, and the clutter around me just seemed normal.

The food still came out great though!!

But as I began to clean up my diet and clear out my head, and as I studied about natural health, Oriental medicine, and Feng Shui, I became aware of the space around me.

In the early years of Wholly Macro, we used to go to peoples homes to cook quite often.

What would start out as a cooking class or a catering job quickly became a kitchen organization and de-cluttering job as well. The two go hand in hand after all, and we can all use some help in that department!

What we found, when going into people's homes, was that many people's kitchens had become their office, medicine cabinet and warehouse / storage unit!

Common kitchen clutter items are: stacks of mail and paid and unpaid bills usually lining the counters in neat (or sometimes not so neat) piles.

Newspapers.

Knick-knacks.

And bottles and bottles of pills!

So now, the first thing that we tell people if we are going to their home to teach them or to cook for them, and even if we are not, is that they must clear all of their kitchen counters in advance of our arrival so that we have a clear and uncluttered space in which to work.

This is a great thing to do anyway, regardless of whether Wholly Macro is coming over or not. 

But how to do this?

We do realize of course that it is far easier said than done.

So here are some tried and true Wholly Macro Kitchen Counter Attacks that you can use to de-clutter your own kitchens:

Organize, organize, organize! Organize the drawers and cabinets so that you have room to put STUFF away. If you have a place for everything, that is neat and tidy and easily accessible, all of the things that accumulate on the counters, won't!

Prioritize carefully. Figure out what you use most often, and make sure that those things are the most easily accessible. Even if it is your bottles of pills, Rolodex file, or unread mail and magazines. Create a drawer or cabinet that is easily within your reach in which to store them.

If you do cook, or even if you just use a steamer pan and basket, create a space for those items too, under the counter in an easy to reach cabinet.

Create an office nook, and preferably not in the kitchen! Make it a habit to keep non-kitchen items in their own respective places so that they no longer occupy valuable and important kitchen space.

Use space saving and organizational accouterments such as baskets, drawer dividers, trays, etc. We have nice divided trays of various sizes in our kitchen, which we use to divide all of our various cooking utensils within cabinets and / or drawers. We also keep the really important most used utensils closest to the sink and stove, and the less frequently used pots, pans, and utensils up higher, down lower, or further away.

It takes some time to get it all right, so experiment, feel it out, and find what works for you and what doesn't.

If it doesn't work, change it! Once you become aware of the space around you and start moving and reorganizing it, if a set up doesn't work for you, change it! Feel the energy of the space you have created or uncreated, and move it around until it feels right!

*Wholly Macro Tip: We have always found that going by your first instinct is best when organizing. What is your first (and natural) purely intuitive thought pattern in relation to what you regularly reach for? And where you would reach for it?  TRUST that first thought. It is usually right. And whenever you go for that object again, chances are that the same thought pattern and instinct will be triggered,. and when it is, you will know just where to "find" said object. 

Get rid of stuff! Put all of the unused stuff into boxes and store them in the garage if you can't just part with them immediately. That way, if you find you just can't live without an item, and it does happen, you can always go retrieve it. Store questionable items in the garage, the utility room, or wherever, but move them OUT of the kitchen!

New Rule: If you bring a new item in, move an old item out! A lot of times, we get a new great thing that replaces an older item that is worn out. Not always, but most of the time. So if you buy a new pot, pan, utensil, or any other kitchen gadget, if at all possible, sort immediately and weed out whatever you can that is no longer functional or useful. You will be shocked at the useless and / or broken items that you will find!

Another important rule: Clean up right away. Nothing works better than this rule.

Work neatly and clean up as you go. It is FAR easier to work in an organized manner, cleaning as much as possible as you go, so that you don't face an overwhelming "job" at the end of your kitchen session, one that you may feel tempted to leave for "later".

If everything has a general space, and is pretty much cleaned up, keeping your kitchen free of clutter will be far easier.

Use user-friendly cleaning products. We have two spray bottles in our kitchen. One is filled with pure white vinegar. It is the absolute best for making everything clean and sparkling. We use the vinegar first, for deep cleaning and disinfecting. The other spray bottle is filled with a mixture of Dr. Bronner's, Mrs. Meyers, or Young Living essential oils all natural cleansers mixed with water. We spritz that second bottle everywhere as we clean, for both the additional cleaning, and for the aromatherapy benefits. Cleaning, organizing, and de-cluttering become so much more pleasurable when you use fabulous smelling, fun, healthy, and healing cleaning products.

Don't eat packaged food! Rid your counters of boxes and bags of chips, cookies, crackers, and other packaged foods by simply NOT buying them anymore. They aren't good for you or for your kitchen.

Store kitchen appliances under the counters in easy to reach places. We can't think of too many kitchen appliances that are used on a daily basis. Coffee pots perhaps, but we hope you are not drinking coffee. All other appliances can and should be stored under the counter so that they don't occupy valuable counter space.

Leave room for the two most important counter top kitchen items that you will need to use on a daily basis: your cutting board, and your knife. These you should be using on a daily basis, and in our humble opinion, these are the two really necessary items that should occupy your kitchen counter.

Love and respect your kitchen.It is the heart of your home. Treat it right. Take good care of it. And thank it daily for nurturing and sustaining you. 

We just love our kitchen here at Wholly Macro.

There are few things more satisfying than gleaming and glistening clean and clear kitchen counters that warmly invite you to step inside and cook to your hearts content.

May health, happiness, and prosperity be your unavoidable natural state and your ongoing daily experience.

Gayle and Jaime / Wholly Macro